Meet our new Senior Analyst, Frances Murray!

Since she was a child, Frances Murray has been fascinated by the ways that planning, policy, and human behavior influence each other and have the potential to create healthier, sustainable communities for everyone. This interest brought her to Penn’s renowned urban planning program, which in turn led to a successful internship at U3 Advisors. She’s now working there full time as an Analyst, where she can put her interests to work for cities and clients across the country.

What was your introduction to U3 Advisors?

I grew up in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, which is a college town outside of Philadelphia, and I went to college in Colorado. I stayed out there for some time after that, and then came back to Philly for grad school. I went to [the University of Pennsylvania’s] City Planning program and got connected to U3 Advisors there through an internship posting from [U3 Vice President] Shea O’Neill, who was my GIS professor. He encouraged me to apply and I had a really great experience with U3 last summer and last fall. Earlier this spring, I was looking into different jobs, and I contacted them again – and it worked out! [laughs]

What kinds of projects did you get to work on during your time as an intern?

I was mostly doing GIS projects and data analysis, as well as some more qualitative research, such as case study research for their anchor convening. I stayed on in the fall to work for a project that was a downtown development plan for Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where we were looking at a lot of employee and student housing. 

What types of things do you envision doing in your current role?

I definitely believe I am a generalist. [laughs] I do a little bit of everything but I am more on the data side of things. I studied Housing, Community and Economic Development in graduate school, which was not very data heavy, but I’ve learned that I really liked it. I’m actually not a numbers person – I studied psychology as an undergraduate. I like people and I like understanding how they fit together. 

Was there a particular moment when you first became interested in the link between behavioral psychology and cities? 

The very first time I thought about it, I was 11 years old. My family was spending the summer in Basel, Switzerland, because my dad was working there. There were so many things in that city that were designed to encourage pro-social human behavior – like the way that you had to pay for the weight of your trash, but recycling and composting are free. I thought “Wait, why aren’t we doing this everywhere?” To an 11 year old, it seems so obvious. [laughs] There are so many small design mechanisms that you can use to influence a huge population. If you make something easy for an individual, it will be beneficial to everybody. It’s like a combination of behavioral economics and planning.

How do you describe what the firm does, particularly to people who are not in this sector? 

I tell people that I’m doing planning and consulting, mostly for cities that have large anchor institutions. To me, community and economic development are the goals of U3 Advisors, through real estate development and stakeholder convening.

How would you describe U3 Advisors’ culture to a friend? 

I felt as an intern that people at the firm really went out of their way to get to know me and what my interests were. So many people asked me what I wanted to learn and what I wanted to get out of the experience: “This is your summer, you need to make something out of it.” It felt like a place where people really care about each other. I could tell from the conversations that people were having,how much they cared about their coworkers; there’s such a strong sense of mutual respect between people and trust that I haven’t felt in other workplaces. Everybody’s able to recognize each other’s strengths and that carries over into our project work.